Magister Legum - LLM / Traditional Knowledge (TK) is the long standing wisdom, teachings and practices of indigenous communities which have been passed on orally, in the majority of cases, from generation to generation. TK is expressed in the form, medicine, agriculture, understanding of the ecology, music, dance, stories, folklore, poetry, spiritual, cultural and artistic expressions, and knowledge relating to bio-diversity. This thesis focuses on plant bio-diversity, as part of TK, and the problem of bio-piracy. We attempt a definition of TK; its characteristics; possible measures that can be taken to ensure its protection; and challenges that are likely to be faced in seeking to ensure its protection, first at the global level, then with particular attention to South Africa. Some of the suggested measures include the enactment of sui generis laws to protect plant biodiversity, rather that the adaptation of the existing IP regime. Some of the challenges include unwillingness of some countries to participate in international initiatives, like the US, which is not even a signatory of the CBD, and the difficulty of identifying the persons in whom ownership of the TK should be vested when it is possessed by many communities.

The thesis deals with a legal protection of results of research and development activities, which runs in collaboration between a university and an industry partner. At the first part of the thesis basic terms are explained, related legislation is introduced and important institutions from the field of intellectual property rights are mentioned. The thesis also describes a legal status of the research and a development center, lists various ways of results protection and provides an introduction to contractual obligations. The technical part contains a calculation of energy and water consumption in the Laboratory of energy intensive processes. Finally, all information provided is used for a preparation of the collaboration agreement draft between the university and the partner from the application area.

UNIVERZITA KARLOVA FAKULTA SOCIÁLNÍCH VĚD INSTITUT POLITOLOGICKÝCH STUDIÍ Vplyv implementácie práv duševného vlastníctva na rozvoj vnútorného trhu NAFTA Bc. Ivana Miková MAGISTERSKÁ DIPLOMOVÁ PRÁCE Praha 2013 Abstract: The thesis discusses the impact of intellectual property rights on economic development of NAFTA. It is based on the theoretical assumptions of the new institutional economics and its notion of transaction costs and institutions and their impact on economic growth, in particular the impact of intellectual property rights, which are an important part of the NAFTA treaty and are contained in chapter 17. of the NAFTA Agreement. Their impact is connected with the new growth theory, which considers innovation and new technology as a major source of economic development. The empirical analysis has found that measures of IPRs contributed to transfer technologies and economic development. Mexico has become the main beneficiary. In the U.S., the situation in the field of innovation and economic development associated with IPRs has not changed significantly, compared with the period before the emergence of NAFTA.

Following the Enlightenment, Western adherence to positivist theory influenced practices of Western research and documentation. Prior to the introduction of positivism into Western scholarship, innovations in printing technology, literary advancements, and the development of capitalism encouraged the passing of copyright statutes by nation-states in fifteenth century Europe. The evolution of copyright and positivism in Europe influenced United States copyright and its protection of the author, as well as the practice of archiving and its role in interpreting history. Because Native American cultures practiced orality, they suffered the loss of their traditional knowledge and cultural expressions not protected by copyright. By incorporating postmodern perspectives on archiving and poststructuralist views on the formation of knowledge, this thesis argues that Native American tribes now use Western forms of digital technology to create archives, record their histories, and reclaim control of their traditional cultural expressions.

Researchers, policy makers and practitioners alike have in recent years acknowledged a growing tendency towards opening up the innovation process by combining internal organizational assets with external actors’ resources. However, opening up the innovation process usually also entails revealing ideas, which may result in misappropriation. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate tensions related to the openness-appropriability relationship; this is done in three studies. The first study concerns a specific contextual factor that is likely to stress the openness-appropriability tensions: the location of external partners in innovation. The second study relates to the way managing openness-appropriability tensions affects performance, and the third study involves a theoretical discussion about the nature of the tensions occurring in the openness-appropriability relationship, i.e. paradoxical, dilemmatic, or dialectical. The first two studies apply quantitative methods, using survey data, while the third is a conceptual paper. The findings from the first study indicate that the use of different groups of appropriability mechanisms varies across various types of openness and that the location of external partners in innovation refines these linkages even more. The second study’s main takeaway is that the higher appropriability intensity, i.e. the extent to which appropriability mechanisms are put into practice, explains higher performance outcomes. The third study suggests that the tensions between openness and appropriability are more likely of paradoxical nature. From a theoretical perspective, findings indicate that paradoxical tensions between openness and appropriability may have a spatial dimension, and that these tensions should also be investigated in regards to performance. Managerial implications point out that opening up to innovation partners located abroad is likely to require more costly appropriability mechanisms. / <p>QC 20170126</p>

M. Tech. (Department of Marketing, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / Counterfeiting is a global phenomenon in developed and developing countries, causing a threat to national economies and societies. It negatively harms new investment and progressively endangers public health and safety as well. Known and famous brands are often targeted for counterfeiting. This phenomenon is primarily driven by consumers’ aspiring attitudes, social media pressures and the need to differentiate oneself. The aim of the study is to examine the influence of materialism, hedonic consumption motive, utilitarian consumption motive, personal gratification and novelty-seeking on attitudes and the influence of attitudes on willingness to purchase counterfeit sportswear products at a selected HEI. The study is grounded within the positivist philosophy, in which a quantitative research approach was followed, since positivists prefer an analytic and factual interpretation of quantitative data. An online structured questionnaire was used to collect data through an online survey. The study sample was conveniently selected from a population of registered students at a selected HEI in Southern Gauteng in the 2020 academic year. Data were collected on demographic variables, materialism (MAT), hedonic motivation (HED), utilitarian motive (UTL), personal gratification (PGT), novelty-seeking (NOS), attitude towards counterfeits (ATC) and willingness to purchase (WTP) counterfeit sportswear. A total of 327 questionnaires were completed and used in the final data analysis. Descriptive statistics techniques, correlations and regression analysis were used to evaluate perceptions and relationships between the study constructs. The research results revealed the existence of significant positive associations amongst the study constructs. Of the five antecedents, two of the five predictor variables, namely, UTL and NOS showed significant predictive relationships with attitudes towards counterfeit sportswear purchases. Attitudes towards counterfeits (ATC) also emerged as a significant predictor of students’ WTP counterfeit sportswear. Since NOS and UTL seem to predict a positive attitude towards counterfeit sportswear, the study recommends that brand owners develop awareness about ethical purchasing behaviour. They should also educate consumers on the social and economic downside of buying counterfeit products and that seeking novelty when purchasing counterfeit products may soon wane and wear off, leading to regret and cognitive dissonance. Further, brand marketers should also emphasise the utility value inherent in the purchase of authentic branded products instead of buying counterfeits. Since consumers cannot often readily distinguish between genuine and fake sportswear, it is therefore critical for marketers of branded products to promote the contrast of originals and fakes and to underline the quality, longevity, and dependability of their authentic products in the market. These results make a valuable contribution to academics, brand managers and marketers, as the results reveal that consumer buying can be influenced by personality and social interests of different individuals. The study notes that laws only cannot prohibit the sale and purchase of counterfeit products. It requires the stricter implementation thereof. Further, there is a need for behavioural change strategies to counter the effects of counterfeiting. Nudges such as promotions and loyalty programmes may encourage the purchase of authentic products as opposed to the purchase of counterfeits.

Recent research approaches in semantics based video content analysis require shot boundary detection as the first step to divide video sequences into sections. Furthermore, with the advances in networking and computing capability, efficient retrieval of multimedia data has become an important issue. Content-based retrieval technologies have been widely implemented to protect intellectual property rights (IPR). In addition, automatic recognition of highlights from videos is a fundamental and challenging problem for content-based indexing and retrieval applications. In this thesis, a paradigm is proposed to segment, retrieve and interpret digital videos. Five algorithms are presented to solve the video segmentation task. Firstly, a simple shot cut detection algorithm is designed for real-time implementation. Secondly, a systematic method is proposed for shot detection using content-based rules and FSM (finite state machine). Thirdly, the shot detection is implemented using local and global indicators. Fourthly, a context awareness approach is proposed to detect shot boundaries. Fifthly, a fuzzy logic method is implemented for shot detection. Furthermore, a novel analysis approach is presented for the detection of video copies. It is robust to complicated distortions and capable of locating the copy of segments inside original videos. Then, iv objects and events are extracted from MPEG Sequences for Video Highlights Indexing and Retrieval. Finally, a human fighting detection algorithm is proposed for movie annotation.

This thesis carries out empirical investigations of the possible impacts of institutions relating to different aspects of innovation, namely incremental innovation activities, collaborative research and development (R&D) activities and radical innovation outcomes. It comprises three studies. The first empirical study focuses on examining the impact of financial constraints and intellectual property rights (IPR) protection on incremental innovation. Using firm-level data from transition countries and employing a two-step probit model with endogenous regressors, this study provides evidence that both financing constraints and strong IPR protection are negatively associated with the incremental innovation activities of firms. Results also confirm that financing constraints faced by firms are significantly influenced by the overall levels of development of financial institutions within a country. The second empirical study looks at the effects of contracting institutions and intellectual property institutions on firms’ collaborative research and development (R&D) activities in developing and transition countries. By employing the Cragg double-hurdle model, this study finds that efficient contract enforcement has a positive effect on the likelihood of firms engaging in R&D partnership and the intensity of firms' expenditures on collaborative R&D. On the other hand, the decision of firms to participate in R&D partnerships and their level of expenditure on collaborative R&D are adversely affected by the strength of IPR protection. The third empirical study investigates the influences of a set of institutions on producing new-to-the-world technologies, as measured by patents. This study is conducted by using a large panel dataset of 98 developed and developing countries over a period of 23 years. Building on the idea production framework, the unconditional quantile regression (UQR) estimates of this study show that along with key research inputs (i.e., existing knowledge stock and resources devoted to R&D), the strength of IPR protection, quality of governance and functioning of financial institutions are also significant determinants of the patent output of a country. The UQR methodology also demonstrates that the effects of institutions on patent production are heterogeneous throughout the various quantiles of patent output distribution. This thesis, therefore, offers an example of how the new institutional economics (NIE) theory is applicable in analysing innovation performances. The findings of this thesis propose useful policy directions that can assist policymakers and managers in accelerating innovation and technological development. / Ministry of Public Administration, the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh

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No / In this paper we report on a composite index of international patent systems strength for 48 developing and industrialized countries annually from 1998 to 2011. Building upon earlier indices we develop a conceptual framework informed by transaction cost theory and derive measures which emphasize the importance of enforcement-related aspects of the patent system of countries. Findings reveal harmonization of the regulative aspects of patent protection internationally in the post-TRIPs era but not of overall national patent systems. The index should inform studies on the relationship between national patent systems and a range of international business and other phenomena. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.